


To a Stranger

by lily_winterwood



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Defying Soulbonds, M/M, Pre-Slash, Soul Bond, YOI Soulmate Zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 02:16:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17357042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_winterwood/pseuds/lily_winterwood
Summary: Otabek meets his soulmate in Barcelona, and it’s not the person he wanted.Written forSoulbound, the YOI Soulmate Zine.





	To a Stranger

Otabek meets his soulmate in Barcelona. The city is dark and grey, as it always is to those who haven’t felt the Sight, but the instant he locks eyes with the other young man heading to the rink to practice, the world grinds to a screeching halt between them.

He sees the drip-drip-drip of the Sight. Splashes of vibrancy in the posters and flags. A suddenly brilliant sky, sleek and colourful buildings all around. It’s like the world has peeled back its protective film, and the key lies in the amber eyes of the young man now staring, breathless, across the plaza from him.

Otabek knows who he is, sees the grace in the turn of his head, the flush that spreads across his cheeks. It’s not someone he’d ever expected, and he can’t deny the slight twinge of disappointment that curls in him as Yuuri Katsuki zips his jacket up further and slips into the rink.

Otabek meets his soulmate in Barcelona, and it’s not the person he wanted.

* * *

Well, that’s not entirely true. Katsuki has a reputation for being cold and beautiful, and as with all those who have such a reputation, there are legions of lovelorn well-wishers sharing a singular dream of being the one to melt the glacier, to delve through the layers and walls and find the real him.

But it feels like cheating, somehow, to be the one person who fate has handed the key. Others have been working hard for that. Others like Viktor Nikiforov, whose eyes never leave Yuuri during practice, who can’t seem to peel himself from his protégé during breaks. Otabek runs through his routines, aware of Katsuki’s piercing amber stare, of Nikiforov’s own scrutinising glances. Sizing up the competition, perhaps, like the living legend he is?

There is none. Otabek may be many things, but a cheater he is not.

But a human he still is. At the end of practice, Katsuki pushes his hair back from his eyes, spins in a graceful circle on the ice. Otabek watches, his heart clenching, as Katsuki skates back to the boards, taking a long sip from his water bottle as the rest of them leave the ice.

The rink is so _magenta_. He’d never noticed _that_ before.

* * *

He meets Yuri Plisetsky after practice. He wishes he could’ve said he met his soulmate then, but fate is cruel, and it’s not always the boy with the eyes of a soldier whose glance colours your world.

“We actually met at Yakov’s summer camp,” he admits, as they lean against the wall of Park Güell, looking down at the too-bright city below them. “Ballet was never my strong suit. So I was put in the novice class, and that was when I saw you.”

And somehow, the world never stopped. The film never pulled back. He had gone for years haunted by the determined gaze of Yuri Plisetsky, only to find out now that his eyes are blue-green, like the infinite depths of the ocean.

“What happened?” Yuri breathes. His hair is golden, like the sunlight, like the medal they’re all going to be fighting for over the next few days. Otabek wants to tuck this colour into his heart, wants to wake every morning to the sight of it.

But he knows now — knows that the universe has ordained for him a pair of amber eyes and jet-black hair instead, and it’s not _fair_ , it really _isn’t_.

“Do you want to be friends or not?” he asks, instead of confessing to this remarkable boy that he had picked him before fate decided otherwise. Yuri’s shoulders, once sullen, relax in something resembling friendliness. He extends a hand, and Otabek takes it.

“Friends,” says Yuri, running the word through his mouth like a foreign sweet. “I don’t think I’ve ever had one of those before.”

Otabek smiles. Being friends is easy, even with the edges of his splintered heart digging into the rest of him at the knowledge that friends might be all they can be.

* * *

Yuri talks about cats, about rock music, about his hopes for the rest of the season. Otabek sits and listens, trying not to dwell too hard on seafoam eyes and golden hair.

It’s like trying not to think of pink elephants. He stirs at his espresso, downs it in one gulp. Yuri’s pulling up videos of his cat now, and Otabek’s heart sinks when he sees the cat is a long-haired Siamese, soft brown fur fading into cream.

Colours. Colours everywhere, reminding him that he knows who his soulmate is, that he’s _defying_ the universe by refusing to overturn the world to find Katsuki again. He sighs, and Yuri raises an eyebrow.

“Is something wrong?” he asks.

“Have you ever gotten the Sight?” Otabek blurts. Yuri blinks at him.

“Why is that any of your business?” he demands, a little prickly.

“I got it today,” replies Otabek. Yuri’s jaw slackens, a vivid pink flush spreading across his cheeks.

“You — what? But that’s not — I didn’t —”

“I know,” says Otabek. Yuri blinks.

“Wait, then that means — who the _fuck_ did you get it with? If you say one of my Angels, I might have to kill you.”

Otabek shakes his head. “Not one of your fans,” he says.

“Thank fuck,” declares Yuri.

“It’s worse,” says Otabek, and then he pauses, considers it. “Has Nikiforov ever gotten the Sight?”

Yuri groans. “I’d hoped for _one_ person. One _fucking_ person on this planet who wouldn’t ask about Viktor bloody Nikiforov. I don’t care if he’s gotten the Sight, and I’m honestly weirded out that the universe thinks the two of you are soulmates.” He pauses. “Though that might break Katsuki’s heart if he —”

“No,” interrupts Otabek, shaking his head. “That’s not what I mean. You’ve heard the news about Nikiforov and Katsuki kissing in Beijing. Everyone swears that they’re soulmates, and…”

“Shut up,” hisses Yuri, leaning forward. “ _No way_.”

There’s a cough, and they turn to see Nikiforov hovering by their table, Katsuki just behind him. “Yurio, come grab dinner with us!” Nikiforov chirps. Otabek sneaks a sidelong glance at Katsuki, just in time to catch him staring back.

Yuri’s eyes are wide when Otabek turns back. _He knows_ , Otabek thinks wildly, as an undeniable sadness seeps through the young skater’s frame. _And he’s hurting, too_.

* * *

“Are you going to tell him?” asks Yuri an eternity later.

They’re sitting side-by-side at a restaurant terrace, next to Katsuki and Nikiforov, Chulanont and Giacometti, and two women Katsuki said were with him. The food is good, the cheer even better, but Otabek tastes and feels none of it as the night wears on.

Katsuki sweetly chatters about how nice it is to be here with all of them. The light of the terrace shines off his jet-black hair, makes his amber eyes dance. Even the food is too colourful, taunting Otabek with each bite of ripe red tomato and vibrant green lettuce. He can’t help but notice how Katsuki seems to deliberately avoid his gaze.

The conversation turns to the banquet from last year’s GPF. Otabek hadn’t been there for that, but according to Yuri it had been a fiasco. Or perhaps the bitterness in his tone at having lost to Katsuki in a drunken breakdancing tournament might be partially attributed to the white-knuckled grip he keeps on his utensils, the jealousy simmering below.

“What’s that ring you’re wearing, Yuuri?” Giacometti asks, as Katsuki lunges across the table to try and get his friends to stop looking at the banquet pictures. Katsuki freezes, his expression growing comically sheepish. He hides the band of gold on his finger, but Nikiforov seems to have different plans.

“They’re a pair!” he exclaims, showing his own set. Otabek had noticed it earlier when Nikiforov showed him a picture of a drunken Katsuki dancing with Nikiforov in his arms, and it’s only now that the bittersweet settles into his chest. He’s not the only one who saw someone and hoped for the universe to pull back the film. He’s not the only one who wishes all of this could be different.

Katsuki and Nikiforov have pair rings. They’ve made their choice, in spite of the Sight. Otabek claps along with the congratulatory public on the terrace, and thinks about the gold he’s tucked into his own heart.

* * *

“Otabek Altin?”

The voice startles Otabek from his cooldown walk after the short programme. He turns to see Katsuki standing there, his hair still gelled back from his performance. Without a word, Katsuki nod towards the path around the stadium. Otabek follows.

“You want to talk about the other day,” he states. Katsuki’s performance tonight had been mechanical, as if he was preoccupied by something else. By the fact that the two of them have been brought together despite having absolutely no work built up between them.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Katsuki confesses. “It’s not fair.”

“I know it’s not fair,” says Otabek, looking down at his shoes. The cold winter air stings at his face. “I’ve never heard of anyone rebelling against fate, either.”

“The ones who do usually end up dead, in the old stories,” replies Katsuki. Ice trickles down Otabek’s spine. “There’s a lot of those in Japan.”

His voice is soft, hesitant. Otabek has spent too many years thinking it meant he was aloof. In spite of himself, he’s drawn in, especially as he sits down on a bench in a nearby park, and Katsuki — Yuuri — sits down beside him.

“What do you think we should do?” he asks.

Yuuri plays with the ring on his finger. “I don’t know,” he confesses. “I had hoped, when I first saw Viktor, that the Sight would come. That I would know what blue looked like, what red was, what yellow felt like… but nothing. I sometimes even fooled myself into thinking maybe the ocean looked a little bluer than it usually does, because I just wanted Viktor.”

“Has he ever…?” asks Otabek. “You don’t have to, if it’s —”

Yuuri nods. “He met his in a hospital corridor. The old man cried the instant their eyes met. Viktor sends flowers to his grave every year.”

“Do the colours fade after they pass?” asks Otabek. Yuuri nods. “But sometimes they come back, because a new soulmate is born. Doesn’t that mean there can be more than one?”

“But if they don’t give you the Sight, are they really?”

“Does it matter?” counters Otabek. Yuuri falls silent, fiddling with his ring again.

“We don’t know anything about each other,” he says. “I don’t even know if I can — if I —”

Otabek takes his hand. Yuuri’s breath hitches, in spite of his words. Tears pool in the corners of his eyes; suddenly Otabek finds Yuuri’s face buried in his shoulder.

“I love music,” he says, stroking circles into Yuuri’s back. “And cats. And the way the sunlight looks in the early afternoon, when it hits something bright and golden. I didn’t know that until today.”

“I’m more of a dog person,” Yuuri confesses, voice muffled. “I love video games. I skip to the end of a book just so I know it ends well.”

“Do you think this will end well?” asks Otabek. He feels Yuuri press his lips thoughtfully against his shoulder, feels his fingers curl against his nape.

“Things only end well if you work for them,” Yuuri murmurs after a moment. “But isn’t there someone else you’d rather work for?” He pulls back, one finger tracing the line of Otabek’s jaw. “Someone you’d break every rule to be with?”

Otabek thinks of gold, of blue-green eyes, of a brown-and-cream-furred cat he’s dying to meet. He thinks of unconditional love, of angel’s wings, of the steely resolve of a soldier wrapped in the grace of a ballerina.

“Friends,” he says, extending a hand. Yuuri exhales in relief.

“Friends,” he agrees. He wants to tear down the stars for someone else. Otabek doesn’t fault him for it.

* * *

After the final, Otabek finds himself on a bench by the sea, looking up at the starless city night.

“It’s a better sight in the country,” Yuri says from beside him. Otabek raises an eyebrow. “You settled things with the piggy, didn’t you?”

“Katsuki?” Otabek asks. Yuri nods. “We discussed things, yes.”

“And what’d he say?”

Otabek shakes his head. “We’re friends.”

Yuri scoffs. “What does that make _us_ , then?” he demands. “You clearly want to spend more time with me.”

Otabek chuckles at that, earning himself a reproachful jab in the ribs. Yuri flits nervously, aggressive bravado hiding insecurities within. He takes in his outfit — the one they’d bought that afternoon on the first day after the Sight — and wishes Yuri could see the full vibrancy of its colours.

“I don’t know right now,” he admits. “But I’m willing to work for it. I’d defy fate for you, Yuri Plisetsky.”

Yuri lunges forward, burying his face in Otabek’s shoulder. “No one’s ever fought for me like this before,” he mumbles, voice wavering. Otabek’s heart gives at that, but the gold swells, filling in the brand-new cracks.

“You’re worth it,” he says. Yuri’s fingers clench in his scarf.

“You know that song from the club?” he asks. “I’m making it my new exhibition. I want you to be in it, too.”

Otabek swallows. “You sure about that?”

“Fuck yeah,” replies Yuri. “It’s going to be work, though. I gotta come up with an entire new choreography before tomorrow night.”

Otabek laughs, extending a hand. “We better get to work, then. Let’s make something really cool together.”

Yuri’s grin is wide as he takes Otabek’s hand. Somehow, it makes the world burn just a little brighter.

**Author's Note:**

> Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,  
> You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)  
> I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,  
> All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,  
> You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,  
> I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,  
> You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,  
> I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,  
> I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,  
> I am to see to it that I do not lose you.  
> — Walt Whitman, "[To a Stranger](https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1867/poems/39)"
> 
> Written for [Soulbound](https://yoisoulmatezine.tumblr.com/), the YOI Soulmate Zine.
> 
> And yes, I suppose it's weird that Viktor and Yuuri aren't soulmates in this verse... but isn't it more romantic if someone decides to defy what fate has decreed for them, to be with you instead? Food for thought :3c
> 
> Scream about YOI with me on [Tumblr](https://omgkatsudonplease.tumblr.com)!


End file.
